As our 2022-2023 program year comes to a close...

It's amazing how fast the school year flies by once spring sets in. Pretty soon the last bell will ring and summer fun will begin!

Thank you for your continued partnership in environmental ed. We look forward to working together again next year! Please take a couple minutes to complete our short end-of-year survey found here. We appreciate your feedback including any known teacher contact info or changes for next year. As a reminder, like last year, we will be sending the 2023-2024 program registration email out later this summer (late-July/early-August), so be on the lookout!

Credit Requirements Due June 1st!

Submit all completed unit work for one student per class, including pre/post-tests, to satisfy credit requirements.

Credit requirements are due June 1 to receive credit for participation in the current school year's program. Failure to submit credit requirements will result in a lapse in credit for the current school year and termination of participation in SD1's Environmental Unit and Storm Water Credit Program. Once a school's participation is terminated, the school must submit a new application for consideration, to include the school administrator's signature, to participate in the program again.

Student work can be uploaded and submitted electronically using this link, or mailed/hand-delivered to SD1's main office located at 1045 Eaton Drive, Ft. Wright, KY 41017, attn: Andrea Dee. Office hours are M-F, 8:00am-4:30pm.

We welcome your feedback!

Your feedback is more important than ever as we wrap up our first year using updated unit materials! Please use the Feedback Hub within the Teacher Toolkit to submit feedback anytime throughout the year on the provided Jamboard. Thank you to all who have submitted Jamboard comments for consideration.

We have added our short End-of-Year School Survey (also linked here) for 2022-2023 to the Feedback Hub, please take a couple minutes to share your thoughts about your experience with the unit this year including the updates! Your feedback helps us to continually improve the program so it is most successful in your classrooms!

Check out these fantastic school site

storm water maps!

One of the most impactful parts of the updated unit is the opportunity for students to use their school site as a case study in accessing storm water management throughout the unit. In Lesson 1, students learn about their watershed and draft their school site including how water moves on and around their site. In Lesson 3, students explore their school site deeper adding pollution found on-site to their school map. In Lesson 5, students conclude with adding Best Management Practices (BMPs) to their school map to best manage storm water pollution and runoff on their school site. This immersive real world experience gets students outside and/or using mapping software to explore human impact in the built environment as well as opportunities to lessen this impact.

Below are examples of school site maps submitted by students this year:

Maps submitted by Lucy Anderson, Nolan Ford, and Graham Hildebrant (top to bottom).

The student maps above were created via Canva by students at Beechwood Elementary School. Did you know student workbooks can be completed virtually (100% paper-free!) and then submitted for credit via Canva? Canva is free and allows teachers and students to share, review, and manage work together in a designated class space. SD1 piloted this option with Beechwood Elementary via Canva this spring with success! If you are interested in learning more about using Canva to complete the unit in your classroom, please reach out!

Have you heard of SD1's Storm Water Challenge?

Are you a K-8 school? Do you have contacts at the middle and high school in your district that may be interested in an SD1 supported project-based civic learning opportunity for Environmental Science and/or Engineering students?

SD1’s Storm Water Challenge invites students to be part of the solution to storm water pollution by designing a BMP for their school or community site! Through this project-based learning challenge, SD1 supports upper middle and high school engineering and/or environmental science students through the following experience:

Learning the importance of storm water management in their community.
Exploring their school site (physically and/or virtually via GIS mapping) to better understand storm water management on their school campus.
Identifying areas for improving storm water management on their school campus.
Investigating BMPs as solutions to improve storm water management on their school campus.
Calculating storm water runoff rates and BMP sizing to appropriately engineer storm water solutions.
Propose a Storm Water Design Project to improve storm water management on their school campus by providing a comprehensive project summary.
Presenting project summary and scope to stakeholders for consideration.

Experiential learning opportunities available throughout the challenge may include an in-school introductory presentation from an SD1 representative about the challenge and provided resources, field trip tour of BMP demonstrations at SD1's Public Service Park, virtual Q&A sessions with SD1 Engineers/Environmental Scientists, and/or a panel of SD1 judges to review final Storm Water Challenge student project submissions.

Thank you for another fantastic year serving as your partner in environmental education!

Should any questions or curiosities come up in regards to wrapping up this program year or preparing for next, feel free to reach out to me at adee@sd1.org.